Modern-ish art forgery film?

[Kay]

I got another one for ya. This film is probably from the 2000's, but once again keywords fail me, so here's hoping.

This film was about the multiple forgery of a pencil drawing of a woman wearing pearl earrings. A con man teams up with an artist to forge this drawing and sell it at least a couple times during the film. Later the artist gets arrested and the talented con man defends him at the trial.

At the end of the film (spoiler alert) they have to turn in the original artwork and have an expert examine it, but they lost the original for some reason I forget, and the artist has to forge the picture once again, from memory this time. When they present it to the expert he surprisingly proclaims it to be the real thing. Why? Because he didn't draw the earrings. Apparently the original drawing did not show earrings, but every forger in history had mistakenly included them. Later the con man asks the artist why he left the earrings out. "She looked better without them" was the reply.

Yeah, yeah, suspend disbelief. I didn't say it was a great film, did I?

Anyway, thanks for looking again.

[Sgt_Markoff]

I know there's a popular novel of contemporary vintage called 'Girl with a Pearl Earring'. Author Tracy Chevalier. It wouldn't surprise me if this obvious but wild guess was the answer.

The novel is just another copycat thriller from what I can tell; but with a real painting by Vermeer at the heart of it as the 'gimmick'. All these trendy novels need a 'gimmick'; Umberto Eco is probably the only thriller writer who doesn't need to stoop like that.

 

[slaytonf]

Made into a movie, 2003:

http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/453557/Girl-With-a-Pearl-Earring/

 

[Kay]

Thanks, but this isn't the film I'm remembering. When I was searching for the film I did mostly get results about that painting, but it's not the same image used in the movie I saw. The movie wasn't really a period piece either, as I recall. It was more of a hipsterish sort of film with smart-alecky type characters.

[CaveGirl]

15 hours ago, Sgt_Markoff said:

I know there's a popular novel of contemporary vintage called 'Girl with a Pearl Earring'. Author Tracy Chevalier. It wouldn't surprise me if this obvious but wild guess was the answer.

The novel is just another copycat thriller from what I can tell; but with a real painting by Vermeer at the heart of it as the 'gimmick'. All these trendy novels need a 'gimmick'; Umberto Eco is probably the only thriller writer who doesn't need to stoop like that.

 

You are so right about Umberto Eco, Sgt. Markoff. If he had written a book about Vermeer, it would not be made into some steamy soap opera, with bogus plot points, like the Chevalier book.

When we went to the giant Vermeer exhibition at the Washington National Gallery, we got to see the "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and being that there were like over twenty out of thirty-five attributed and extant Vermeer's at the time, it was noted that Johannes used his wife, relatives and daughters as models, not the kitchen maid [or whatever Scarlet was supposed to be!]...which was so obvious due to their similar facial physiognomies.

I am wondering though if there is still a connection to Vermeer for the OP's question, as the tale seems a bit like a version of the Han van Meegeren story. He was the man who was arrested for supposedly trying to pass his works off as Vermeers. He later went to court, sometime in the first half of the 1900's, and actually painted what he called a Vermeer style work in court, due to being charged with another crime involving removal of national art treasures from the country. Don't know whether his story has been made into a movie or not.